Toronto will host the 2024 FIDE Candidates and Women’s Candidates, scheduled for April 3-25, with a prize fund of EUR 750,000. It will be the first time in chess history that both events will be held at the same time and venue, and also the first time that the Candidates Tournament is held in North America.
The event will be sponsored by the Scheinberg family, as part of the long-term collaboration agreement that was announced in 2022. FIDE thanked the Scheinberg family, whose support for chess over the last nine years has made possible a number of top-level events and is going to be instrumental in staging the Candidates and Women’s Candidates in 2024.
FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich said: “FIDE is happy to award such an important competition to Canada, a country that has made significant chess progress in recent years, with more kids playing the game, more titled players, and more chess fans and chess streamers. The fact that it is going to be the first time that the Candidates and Women’s Candidates will be played under one roof underlines FIDE’s efforts to promote chess, providing more opportunities and proper financial conditions for top female players. Holding the events concurrently at the same venue with a single broadcast can only help bring the Women’s Candidates to a wider audience, with a greater following.”
“The Candidates Tournaments will start in just over a year’s time, but I know many chess fans will already be counting down the days towards these exceptional events,” added Dvorkovich.
Isai Scheinbergย said: “My family and I are very happy that the Candidates Tournaments will be held in Canada, our home country. The Candidates has a long tradition of producing exciting and gruelling battles in pursuit of the biggest prize in chess, and I’m sure that the 2024 edition will be no exception. I look forward to seeing many of the world’s top players in action, with Toronto at the center of the chess world for over three weeks in April 2024.”
In addition, the earlier FIDE announcement from 28th April 2022 that “the two top finishers of the 2023 Grand Chess Tour Series will qualify for the Candidates 2024” was silently sidestepped.
